Abstract
The term Arab Jew is not singularly defined in America’s discourse on Arab Jewish and Mizrahi studies. As a cursory summary, the Arab Jew is sometimes politically, culturally, or legally constituted depending on the predilections of academics who concern themselves with it. This inherent multiplicity in academic discussions of the term Arab Jew is not necessarily an impetus for critique. Rather, it can be an impetus for further inquiry. Those intrigued enough with the term to ask, “What is a possible Arab Jewish subjectivity?” must bear in mind the term’s multiplicity as well as its position within academia. Given these preliminaries and as a way to complicate the term further, the answer to the previously posed question might begin by locating primary source material outside of the academy. This thesis does just that, by delineating efforts to discuss the term Arab Jew with Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian born, Iraqi Jewish immigrants to America. For purposes of feasibility and precision the interviews that form the crux of this thesis take place at America’s largest Iraqi synagogue: The Sephardic Synagogue Kahal Joseph. Because a great deal of the primary source literature from Iraqi Jews is authored by those who perform male, these interviews seek to amplify the voices of those who perform as female. When the female performing subjects of these interviews answer the question, “Do you call yourself an Arab Jew?” a possible Arab Jewish subjectivity is discernible. Such a subjectivity is informed by Israel’s discourse of scholarship on Mizrahim, constituted through three facets of culture--education, material, and an ephemeral sense of history--and characterized by various types of cognitive dissonance. Once the Arab Jewish subjectivity discerned at Kahal Joseph is dialogued with conceptions of the term already proliferating in international academia, consciousness raising can occur and the term can be proven worthy of further study.